Gillibrand Trying to Wave In Her New Ethnic Constituencies

Photo Courtesy AP/Kathy Willens

Before marching in yesterday's Chinatown parade, new Senator Kirsten Gillibrand stopped by the Brooklyn offices of El Diario, the newspaper that recently featured her picture on the cover along with the headline "ANTI INMIGRANTE." The new senator has been trying to find common ground with state Democrats who are taking issue with some of her more conservative votes as a first term congresswoman in a district that previously had elected Republicans for the 25 years prior. After the meeting at El Diario with Hispanic lawmakers, Gillibrand told the press, "I think on some issues my positions will change. ... Others will become simply broader."

She revealed yesterday that part of her "evolution" (dubbed by colleague Chuck Schumer) will involve helping to repeal a federal bill that discourages states from allowing illegal aliens to pay low in-state tuition fees. She also no longer supported cracking down on so-called sanctuary cities like New York that fail to enforce all immigration laws. She did however reaffirm her stance on an official language for the US saying, "English can be such a unifying language."

The officials who met with Gillibrand seemed to give a tepid response to the meeting. City Councilman Joel Rivera, who last week publicly called Gillibrand a "xenophobe" said, "We cannot afford to stand with someone who will make no commitment [to us]. We have been given a lot of rhetoric over the years. We need action."

Elsewhere over the weekend, Gillibrand posted her responses to the 28-page form Governor Paterson gave to all potential Senate candidates. The Times-Union points out that she "filled the form out longhand—which in general is a no-no for a job applicant in these digital days." And in case Paterson needed any more enemies as a result of his selection process, the News reports that he may have stepped into hot water with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, now that Gillibrand's House seat may flip to the GOP with Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco throwing his hat into the ring for it.

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By Billy Parker in News on February 2, 2009 1:20 PM

Comments [rss]

themsthebreaks

What's wrong with English being the official language? I don't understand how there is even an argument there.

jpeditor

"What's wrong with English being the official language? I don't understand how there is even an argument there."

Better readup on your Chomsky and Zinn, or it's off to the reeducation camps for you.

Don't you know that English is the language of imperialism, that borders are so pre post-modern, and that demanding that people who come to America make an attempt to absorb some basic American values and language shows you to be a neanderthal!

/ sarcasm off

jpeditor

According to the NYT, if you support jobs for legal Americans ( whatever their heritage) and you are for border security, you are a racist!

Read about the NY Times want–ad / article here.

Polite New Yorker

Such a shame that's she's selling out our state and country to the illegal alien lobby before she's been in office a week, pandering to ethnic votes that she won't get anyway. Our country can't stand much more of this "evolution."

Felix Hoenikker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLAgnjKQl6c

This is what that photo op reminds me of.

Bottomless Chips

Not sure I get this country. We bitch about budget deficits, but keep giving benefits to illegals even though many are waiting patiently to become citizens?

Evolve, Chucky? Here's an idea: End the welfare state and let anyone into the US. Here's won't work: Keep giving socialist benefits out, and you incentivize their usage and for immigration to be "illegal."

TKaisen

and SUV's are the fat offspring of gluttony, not porous laws

The funny part is that you probably really believe this.

Bottomless Chips

TKaisen,

You used his comment but replied to me. The new commenting here sucks, huh?

Anyway, if that was directed at me: Yes. I do believe that the rise of the SUV would not have been so meteoric had the CAFE standards never existed. That's not to say SUVs would never have come about, but government provided the perverse incentive (incentivized) which was intervention in the marketplace. When this intervention happens you change behavior, sometimes for the better, but usually for the worse.

chuzzlewit

i do understand and acknowledge the phenomenon you refer to.

i think its a bigger discussion than should be had on this board.

chuzzlewit

"incentivize"?

sir, you give yourself away.

Bottomless Chips

What does your smug response mean? I assume you're making fun of me. How about refuting what I said, instead.

chuzzlewit

Where did you learn that word?

Bottomless Chips

Economics.

The law of unintended consequences.

When you create certain laws or craft bills, you generally create a perverse incentive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive

A good example would be the CAFE standards. They had great intentions to reduce emissions standards. But in the bill you still had to allow certain cars that wouldn't meet the new mpg/emissions standards (for ppl like construction workers, farmers, childcare shuttle buses, etc.). They led to the creation of SUVs as they didn't have to fall in the "car" category, same goes for mini-vans.

Alas, we now see the problems 20 years later with SUVs. But who facilitated their rise? That's right: the government through a perverse incentive.

chuzzlewit

Precisely.

"Currently an inaccurate catchall for management consultants and their younger, wetter-eared MBA counterparts, the late great "incentive" has given birth to a two-headed beast of bad patterns: "incent" and "incentivize."

source:Lea Carper/The Harbus/Viewpoint/9.3.02

and SUV's are the fat offspring of gluttony, not porous laws